Have you ever felt the burning desire to go workout, but never known what to do or how to do it? The on-campus rec center has the perfect 30 minute solution for you.  Every Wednesday starting at 6 p.m. Campus Recreation hosts an instructor-guided High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) class. HIIT  is a series of timed exercises ranging in difficulty with an end goal of increasing the heart rate.  Some examples of these exercises were split squats, burpees, curtsy lunges, bicycle crunches and many more that varied in intensity.  With a pattern of 45 seconds on and 30 seconds off, each of the four exercise sets proved to be a great test.  

One of the about 20 students participating was freshman Charlize Padilla.  It was her first time attending a HIIT class. In an interview with the STAR, she mentioned how she was encouraged to come by her peers.  Padilla is a big fan of similar exercise classes that are held at the Rec and said, “I like how [Campus Recreation] events introduce a different type of workout every week.” Inside the class of about 20 people, there were only female Seawolves in attendance. .   Charlize herself is a fitness enthusiast and said “this event was fun to go to because it was a quick and easy workout.”

After the 30 minute workout and some cool-down stretching, the STAR caught up with the class’s instructor, Alex Guevara.  He talked about how the weekly Campus Recreation Events are great for students, who spend a good amount of time behind a computer.  A study by The Mirror backed this up and states that students spend an average of 40 hours on their computers per week.  Guevara said, “getting the body moving is very healthy for college students.” He also said, “we’re usually sitting at a desk working at a computer for most of the day, even 30 minutes of a good workout is beneficial.” 

The Campus Recreation portal hosts a wide array of activities and exercises to actively stimulate students.  They have an event calendar on campusrec.sonoma.edu that gives students different options to choose from.  These events take place weekly and include everything physical as well as fun activities that look to improve students’ mental health and well-being.  Physical events happening this week include: an introduction to climbing clinics, ‘buti’ yoga, introductory yoga, cycling class, jazzercise and another HIIT class.   The Rec Center offers two great calming activities: a stress reduction class and playing games with CAPS(Counseling and Psychological Services).  These events are great outlets for students looking to get out of their routine and participate in something productive and liberating from their daily student life routine.